P42:2, 2:7.1 All finite knowledge and creature understanding are relative. Information and intelligence, gleaned from even high sources, is only
relatively complete, locally accurate, and personally true.
P42:3, 2:7.2 Physical facts are fairly uniform, but truth is a living and flexible
factor in the philosophy of the universe. Evolving personalities are
only partially wise and relatively true in their communications. They
can be certain only as far as their personal experience extends. That
which apparently may be wholly true in one place may be only relatively
true in another segment of creation.
P42:4, 2:7.3 Divine truth, final truth, is uniform and universal, but the story of
things spiritual, as it is told by numerous individuals hailing from
various spheres, may sometimes vary in details owing to this relativity
in the completeness of knowledge and in the repleteness of personal
experience as well as in the length and extent of that experience. While
the laws and decrees, the thoughts and attitudes, of the First Great
Source and Center are eternally, infinitely, and universally true; at
the same time, their application to, and adjustment for, every universe,
system, world, and created intelligence, are in accordance with the
plans and technique of the Creator Sons as they function in their respective
universes, as well as in harmony with the local plans and procedures
of the Infinite Spirit and of all other associated celestial personalities.
P42:5, 2:7.4 The false science of materialism would sentence mortal man to become
an outcast in the universe. Such partial knowledge is potentially evil;
it is knowledge composed of both good and evil. Truth is beautiful because
it is both replete and symmetrical. When man searches for truth, he
pursues the divinely real.
P42:6, 2:7.5 Philosophers commit their gravest error when they are misled into the
fallacy of abstraction, the practice of focusing the attention upon
one aspect of reality and then of pronouncing such an isolated aspect
to be the whole truth. The wise philosopher will always look for the
creative design which is behind, and pre-existent to, all universe phenomena.
The creator thought invariably precedes creative action.
P42:7, 2:7.6 Intellectual self-consciousness can discover the beauty of truth, its
spiritual quality, not only by the philosophic consistency of its concepts,
but more certainly and surely by the unerring response of the ever-present
Spirit of Truth. Happiness ensues from the recognition of truth because
it can be acted out; it can be lived. Disappointment and sorrow
attend upon error because, not being a reality, it cannot be realized
in experience. Divine truth is best known by its spiritual flavor.
P42:8, 2:7.7 The eternal quest is for unification, for divine coherence. The far-flung
physical universe coheres in the Isle of Paradise; the intellectual
universe coheres in the God of mind, the Conjoint Actor; the spiritual
universe is coherent in the personality of the Eternal Son. But the
isolated mortal of time and space coheres in God the Father through
the direct relationship between the indwelling Thought Adjuster and
the Universal Father. Man's Adjuster is a fragment of God and everlastingly
seeks for divine unification; it coheres with, and in, the Paradise
Deity of the First Source and Center.
P43:1, 2:7.8 The discernment of supreme beauty is the discovery and integration of
reality: The discernment of the divine goodness in the eternal truth,
that is ultimate beauty. Even the charm of human art consists in the
harmony of its unity.
P43:2, 2:7.9 The great mistake of the Hebrew religion was its failure to associate
the goodness of God with the factual truths of science and the appealing
beauty of art. As civilization progressed, and since religion continued
to pursue the same unwise course of overemphasizing the goodness of God to the relative exclusion of truth and neglect of
beauty, there developed an increasing tendency for certain types of
men to turn away from the abstract and dissociated concept of isolated goodness. The overstressed and isolated morality of modern religion, which fails to hold the devotion
and loyalty of many twentieth-century men, would rehabilitate itself
if, in addition to its moral mandates, it would give equal consideration
to the truths of science, philosophy, and spiritual experience, and
to the beauties of the physical creation, the charm of intellectual
art, and the grandeur of genuine character achievement.
P43:3, 2:7.10 The religious challenge of this age is to those farseeing and forward-looking
men and women of spiritual insight who will dare to construct a new
and appealing philosophy of living out of the enlarged and exquisitely
integrated modern concepts of cosmic truth, universe beauty, and divine
goodness. Such a new and righteous vision of morality will attract all
that is good in the mind of man and challenge that which is best in
the human soul. Truth, beauty, and goodness are divine realities, and
as man ascends the scale of spiritual living, these supreme qualities
of the Eternal become increasingly co-ordinated and unified in God,
who is love.
P43:4, 2:7.11 All truth -- material, philosophic, or spiritual -- is both beautiful
and good. All real beauty -- material art or spiritual symmetry -- is
both true and good. All genuine goodness -- whether personal morality,
social equity, or divine ministry -- is equally true and beautiful.
Health, sanity, and happiness are integrations of truth, beauty, and goodness as they are blended in human experience.
Such levels of efficient living come about through the unification of
energy systems, idea systems, and spirit systems.
P43:5, 2:7.12 Truth is coherent, beauty attractive, goodness stabilizing. And when
these values of that which is real are co-ordinated in personality experience,
the result is a high order of love conditioned by wisdom and qualified
by loyalty. The real purpose of all universe education is to effect
the better co-ordination of the isolated child of the worlds with the
larger realities of his expanding experience. Reality is finite on the
human level, infinite and eternal on the higher and divine levels.
P43:6, 2:7.13 [Presented by a Divine Counselor acting by authority of the Ancients
of Days on Uversa.]